Quick summary
Two of Guatemala's four tracked Airbnb markets have a long-term rent median to compare against. In Antigua, a 2-guest entire place asked a median $82 a night (captured 1 Oct 2026; $92 in the 4 Sep 2026 capture) against a $1,200 median monthly rent (Encuentra24, scraped_on 20 Sep 2026) — about 14.6 booked nights a month to break even. In Guatemala City, $54 a night ($64 on 4 Sep) against Zone 10's $1,500 median rent needs about 27.8 nights, 93% of a 30-day month. Lake Atitlán and the Pacific coast get no break-even here at all, because the rental feed carries no zone for either. Occupancy is unknown and every fee is excluded — this is a threshold, not a yield.
The nightly side: what all four markets ask
Data collected 2026-10-17 for a 2026-11-17 to 2026-11-19 stay. Airbnb prices change daily and by date: check live before booking.
| Market | Entire, 2 guests | Private room, 2 | Entire, 3–4 | Entire, 5–8 | Listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antigua Guatemala | $103 | $56* | $132 | $208 | 235 |
| Lake Atitlán | $101 | $52* | $146 | $235 | 183 |
| Guatemala City & metro | $61 | — | $57 | $126 | 173 |
| Pacific coast | $113* | $75* | $106* | $288 | 288 |
Captured 2026-10-17 · 2026-11-17→2026-11-19 · USD (capture date · stay queried · currency), searched for 2, 6 and 12 adults, 2-night weekday stay. Captured once a month: a capped sample of Airbnb search results for one fixed 2-night weekday stay about a month ahead, priced for the party size of the search that found each listing (2 adults for anything sleeping up to four; 6 or 12 adults only for larger homes that did not appear in the 2-adult search). Not every listing, only those still open for those dates; the nightly rate Airbnb showed for that stay (a displayed promotion is usually already inside it), not booked rates. Large homes are over-represented in the sample, so compare the guest-count segments, not the overall median. * = small sample (10–19 listings); — = fewer than 10, no median. Source: Airbnb search results via Apify.
The next table gives the capture-by-capture median for an entire place sleeping two in each market, each priced for a fixed two-night stay about a month after its capture date.
Median nightly rate, entire place, 2 guests, capture by capture (USD, the rate shown for the captured stay).
| Capture | Antigua Guatemala | Lake Atitlán | Guatemala City & metro | Pacific coast |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-04 | $92 n=400 | $87 n=300 | $64 n=250 | $102 n=200 |
| 2026-10-01 | $82 n=237 | $102 n=166 | $54 n=175 | $107 n=287 |
| 2026-10-17 (current) | $103 n=235 | $101 n=183 | $61 n=173 | $113 n=288 |
Each capture is a capped sample of listings for a fixed two-night stay about a month out; n = that market's listings in the capture. A dash means fewer than 10 priced listings in that segment. Source: scripts/real_estate/build_airbnb_stats.py.
Same stay, other platforms: Airbnb vs Vrbo vs Booking.com in Guatemala puts the three platforms’ two-guest medians side by side, first captured 1 Oct 2026.
How this comparison is built, exactly
Two datasets meet on this page and they do not share a source, a cadence or a date, so the method is stated in full rather than buried:
- Nightly side. The
two_guests_entiresegment median for each market, from the monthly Airbnb capture,captured_on1 Oct 2026, for a 3–5 Nov 2026 weekday stay priced for 2 adults. An entire place sleeping two is the closest short-stay equivalent to a rented one- or two-bedroom apartment, which is why that segment is used instead of the overall market median. - Comparing the two Airbnb captures. The first capture (4 Sep 2026) was one 2-adult search per market; the 1 Oct 2026 capture added searches filtered for groups of 6 and 12, so it holds more large homes by design. Market-wide medians, listing counts and capacity mixes therefore do not compare between the two captures, while the guest-count segment medians do, which is why every Sep-to-Oct comparison on this page is made segment to segment.
- Monthly side. The USD median (
usd.median) from the weekly Encuentra24 long-term rental scrape, fieldscraped_on= 20 Sep 2026, for the zone that matches each Airbnb market. USD is used because the short-stay rates are in USD; the same feed also publishes a quetzal median per zone, and the two currencies describe genuinely different sub-markets. - The arithmetic. Nightly median × 30 gives a 100%-occupancy month. Rent ÷ nightly median gives break-even nights. Both are computed from the unrounded medians in the feeds, so a hand-check against the rounded dollars in the table will land a dollar or two away.
Market by market
| Market | 2-guest entire, per night (1 Oct 2026) | × 30 nights | Long-term median rent, USD (20 Sep 2026) | Rent-zone key used | Break-even nights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antigua Guatemala | $82 | $2,469 | $1,200 (13 USD listings) | sacatepequez-antigua-guatemala | ~14.6 |
| Guatemala City & metro | $54 | $1,620 | $1,500 (169 USD listings) | guatemala-guatemala-city-zona-10 | ~27.8 |
| Lake Atitlán | $102* | $3,065 | no zone in the rental feed | — | not published |
| Pacific coast | $107* | $3,212 | no zone in the rental feed | — | not published |
* Lake Atitlán’s and the Pacific coast’s 2-guest entire-place segments hold 16 and 14 priced listings and are flagged small samples in the source; Antigua’s holds 21 and Guatemala City’s 31. The Antigua rent zone carries 20 priced listings in total, 13 of them in USD; the rental feed flags neither the zone nor its USD sub-sample as thin, but at 13 listings that $1,200 is the smallest rent sample in this table. Break-even nights and the ×30 column are computed from the unrounded medians.
The two published rows sit far apart, and that is the finding. Antigua’s short-stay asking rate clears a month of Antigua rent in about 14.6 booked nights, under half a 30-day month; the capital’s needs about 27.8 of 30 nights to clear Zone 10 rent. The mechanism is visible in the two feeds themselves: in the 1 Oct 2026 capture Antigua’s nightly median sits above the capital’s at every guest count where both publish one ($82 vs $54, $125 vs $64.50, $277 vs $110.50, $415 vs $234), while on the rent side Zone 10’s $1,500 USD median ties Zone 14 and Santa Catarina Pinula for the highest among the city-metro zones whose USD sample the feed does not flag as thin.
Break-even by Guatemala City zone
Pairing the whole capital against one zone hides how far its rents differ, so here is the same division run across every tracked city-metro zone whose USD sample the rental feed does not flag as thin, plus Zone 16, shown without a break-even, all against the same $54 city-wide nightly median (1 Oct 2026; $64 on 4 Sep 2026):
| Zone (rent feed) | Median rent, USD (20 Sep 2026) | USD listings | Break-even nights at $54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone 4 | $875 | 32 | ~16.2 |
| Zone 11 | $887 | 21 | ~16.4 |
| Zone 13 | $1,150 | 55 | ~21.3 |
| Zone 15 | $1,200 | 103 | ~22.2 |
| Santa Catarina Pinula | $1,500 | 18 | ~27.8 |
| Zone 14 | $1,500 | 191 | ~27.8 |
| Zone 10 | $1,500 | 169 | ~27.8 |
| Zone 16 (Cayalá) | $3,750 | 2 | — |
Zone 16 (Cayalá) gets no break-even because the rental feed flags its USD sample as thin at 2 listings. Zones 1, 7 and 9, Mixco, Villa Nueva and Quetzaltenango are omitted because the rental feed flags their USD samples as thin — 3, 1, 5, 0, 0 and 1 USD-priced listings respectively (Mixco’s 3 dollar rows in that scrape were commercial properties, now excluded). Nightly median: Airbnb capture, 1 Oct 2026. Rent medians: Encuentra24, scraped_on 20 Sep 2026; the rescrape is scheduled weekly, so the live figure is always the one on the linked zone page.
Read down that column and the capital splits into three bands: about 16 nights in Zones 4 and 11, about 21 to 22 nights in Zones 13 and 15, and about 27.8 nights in Zones 10 and 14 and Santa Catarina Pinula, which share the $1,500 median. One nightly rate is being tested against the monthly rents of seven zones, from $875 to $1,500.
Four reasons this number is a threshold, not a yield
- Occupancy is unmeasured. No verified short-term-rental occupancy source exists for Guatemala. Break-even nights tell you the target; nothing here tells you whether a property hits it. Antigua’s 14.6 nights is 49% of a 30-day month, and that is an assumption you have to test, not a figure this page supplies.
- Every fee is excluded on both sides. The Airbnb capture returns no cleaning or service fee, and the builder therefore publishes no all-in figure. Nothing here nets out platform commission, management, furnishing, utilities, maintenance, or SAT tax.
- The two sides are not the same product. A short stay is furnished, serviced and priced weekly; the long-term medians come from a market that is largely unfurnished and rented for a year. The rental feed does not carry a furnished flag, so this page makes no furnished-premium adjustment.
- Both sides are samples. The Airbnb figures come from one capture of one 2-night stay, and only from listings still open for those dates. The rent figures come from active Encuentra24 listings, quarantined against sale prices posted as rent, and are asking rents rather than signed leases.
Filter the nightly side yourself
Data collected 2026-10-17 for a 2026-11-17 to 2026-11-19 stay (searches for 2, 6 and 12 adults). Airbnb prices change daily and by date: check live before booking.
Loading the sample…
Nightly rate as Airbnb showed it on those dates for the party size of the search that found each listing (2 adults for every place sleeping up to four; 6 or 12 adults only for larger homes that did not appear in the 2-adult search) (a displayed promotion is usually already inside it), before extra-guest fees, cleaning, service fees and taxes. A capped monthly sample of Airbnb search results (large homes are over-represented); amenities are what the listing lists. Under 10 matches: no median; 10–19: small sample. No individual listing is ever shown.
Check today's prices on other platforms (each button opens that platform's own search for the place named; we do not compare their prices here)
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